Arctic are back again with another air cooler in the form of the i35 A-RGB. With the name hinting at the addressable RGB functionality, let’s dive in with a look at the cooler and see how it looks and ultimately performs…
Arctic Freezer i35 A-RGB: Specifications
Heatsink
Cable: 450 mm cable with 80 mm sharing cable, black
Arctic Freezer i35 A-RGB: Unboxing and Closer Look
Arctic has packaged the i35 A-RGB in a black box with blue accenting. The packaging itself is completely made of cardboard and no plastics are used at all, big thumbs up here!
The box is covered with plenty of useful information and a QR code on the front, we’d recommend you use this as it’s a link to the installation manual which is no longer included in the box. Something we think is fantastic and should be an industry standard.
Removing the cooler and accessory box from the outer packaging, let’s take a look at what accessories are included…
In total:
- 1x Backplate
- 4x Screws
- 4x Black spacers for Intel LGA1700 socket
- 4x White spacers for Intel LGA1200/115X sockets
- 2x Brackets
- 4x Thumbnuts
- 4x Washers
- Small tube of MX5 thermal paste
The i35 A-RGB comes complete with a pressure optimised 120mm P12 A-RGB fluid dynamic bearing fan attached directly to the all-in-one black plastic housing that contains the clips to mount it to the heatsink.
The i35 A-RGB measures in at 158.5mmx133mmx91mm (HxWxL) and has 4 copper direct touch heatpipes to aid in cooling potential and weighs in at 764g. There are 54 aluminium fins attached in total at 0.44mm thickness.
The base of the cooler has a metal plate going through with 2 spring loaded screws used to mount the cooler to the bracket. Be sure to remove the sticker on the base of the cooler before installation.
The fan is powered by a 4-pin PWM connector and the cable is 200mm in length. The A-RGB connector uses the 3-pin 5v addressable RGB connector and the cable is 450mm in length, the 3-pin A-RGB connector also has an extension to connect additional headers. Both are plenty long enough to comfortably run to their desired connectors.
Arctic Freezer i35 A-RGB: Installation
The 4 screws are inserted through the backplate and held in place using the rubber washer. Our LGA1200 socket requires the white standoffs, thumbnuts and brackets.
The backplate goes through the back of the motherboard and the standoffs are then inserted over those screws. Be sure to hold the back of it as it kept falling out when trying to install the standoffs and brackets due to its heft.
The thumbnuts secure the brackets in place, and from there the i35 A-RGB heatsink can be installed.
Finally, the fan housing is installed and the 4-pin power and 3-pin 5v A-RGB connector are connected to the motherboard.
A view of the A-RGB in action. It’s really bright, vivid and looks great installed in the system.
Arctic Freezer i35 A-RGB: Thermal Performance
We have decided to update the testing method accordingly for better and more consistent results. It isn’t ideal running Prime95 for a prolonged period of time and if you get called away to do something, it could be left running for much longer than needed. Our new methodology involves running a multi-threaded performance benchmark called Cinebench R23.
It should also be noted that the reason we omit acoustic/noise testing is due to an inaccuracy within the readings and method. To provide truly accurate readings, you need a lab setting with the same ambient noise on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day and week-by-week basis. As ambient noise can increase at different times of the day, we believe that it’s pointless providing noise testing if we can’t measure consistent and accurate data.
Test Setup
- CPU – Intel Core i7-10700k– 3.8GHz (1.1v) & 5.0GHz (1.3v)
- Motherboard – Aorus Z590 Ultra
- GPU – Sapphire RADEON RX570 NITRO+ 8GB
- RAM – Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB (16GBx2) 3600MHz DDR4
- PSU – Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 850w
- Case – Thermaltake Divider 300 TG Air Snow Mid-Tower
- OS – Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
In addition to keeping our test setup consistent for all CPU cooling tests, we also always use the same thermal paste rather than any that comes supplied or pre-applied. Our thermal paste of choice is NT-H2 from Noctua.
Idle Testing Methodology
To test each cooler at idle, the minimum temperature is taken after leaving the PC with only start-up programs being allowed to run for 5 minutes. The mean of three tests is recorded. This temperature is deducted from the current room temperature and our final delta temperature is provided.
Load Testing Methodology
To test each cooler under load, we run Cinebench R23 for 60 minutes using the multicore CPU test. The mean of three tests is recorded. This temperature is deducted from the current room temperature and our final delta temperature is provided.
Results
Arctic Freezer i35 A-RGB: The Verdict
As we can see the results from the thermal testing indicate that the i35 A-RGB can’t contain the Intel 10700k at 5.0GHz, with the CPU overheating and restarting the system. However, with a 160w TDP and the 10700k that outputs around 220W under full load, it’s not a surprising result, and in all other testing, the i35 A-RGB performed admirably.
The price to performance with the i35 A-RGB is about expected once you factor in the A-RGB fan included, and we struggle to find another £37.99 cooler that can offer the same features, we have to admit the A-RGB on the i35 A-RGB is well executed too and looks brilliant!
In terms of cooling, we don’t recommend it if you plan on anything more than a mild CPU overclock, it’s still more than capable of cooling non-K and K Intel CPU SKUs to their max turbo frequencies.
The i35 A-RGB is also a fairly attractive CPU cooler largely thanks to the black fan housing that extends over the top of the heatsink covering the bulk of the fins and heatpipes, though those are also painted black in keeping with the theme and with a huge 6-year warranty on offer, thanks to the quiet (even when pinned at 2000rpm) dynamic bearing fan used it’s hard to not recommend this to anyone looking for an affordable Intel CPU cooler.
What’s hot:
- Addressable RGB fan!
- Build quality is decent.
- Acceptable cooling performance.
What’s not:
- The backplate is heavy and kept falling out during installation.
- Thermals are not much better than the cheaper i13x!
Big thanks to Arctic for sending the Freezer i35 A-RGB in for today’s review.
